Italian Restaurant Fined

Italian Restaurant Fined

Italy has some of the strictest animal rights laws in the world. A restaurant was fined 688 Euros ($855) for having a display of live lobsters on ice. A court in Vicenza ruled that the display was a form of animal abuse.

“We’re appealing,” said Giuseppe Scalesia, who runs La Conchiglia D’Oro (Golden Shell) restaurant along with his brother Camillo. “They said that the lobsters, laying on the ice, suffer… They compared them in court to other animals, like cats and dogs.”

The case was brought by Gianpaolo Cecchetto, a former environmental activist, who with his family visited the restaurant in May 2002.

“They were shocked by the display”, Cecchetto told Reuters, adding he got in touch with the ENPA (Ente Nazionale Protezione Animali) a national animal protection organization. ENPA took care of the lawyers and legal proceedings.

Rome has banned goldfish bowls and Turin passed a law allowing fines of 500 Euros if owners did not walk their dogs at least three times a day. Reggio Emilia has laws banning the boiling of live lobsters as useless torture. Also in Reggio Emilia sociable birds must be kept in pairs and law dictates how large birdcages must be.